Post-restructure, IHG’s Barr says it’s about brand, scale and tech as it prepares to launch new reservations system
It was the Friday of the 10th Formula 1 weekend in Singapore. One assumes all visitors coming to town that weekend are here for the race but no, not the new group CEO of Intercontinental Hotels Group, Keith Barr. Barr was making a lightning visit to Singapore and the region to “spend time with the [...]
Fried scorpion may not be his thing but helping travellers have better vacations is: Steve Kaufer on TripAdvisor’s great end game
Steve Kaufer, CEO & founder of TripAdvisor, could hardly remember what he ate for dinner the evening before. “It was something interesting,” he said. I was curious because he kept talking about how TripAdvisor wants to help travellers have awesome experiences in destinations – from tours t [...]
Malaysia’s Tourism Tax: Finally enforced, but still faces long road to smooth implementation
On September 1 Malaysia implemented the controversial Tourism Tax (TTx) for foreign tourists, a RM10 (US$2.40) daily levy on hotel accommodation, much to the chagrin of the industry given that many questions remain unanswered.
There is no clarity yet on how the tax should be collected even though [...]
AirAsia wants to remove “cash from the plane”, first step a new Freedom Flyer scheme
Low-cost airline, AirAsia launched its new Freedom Flyer Programme last week at RedQ in Kuala Lumpur, a first step in group CEO Tony Fernandes’ dream of “removing cash from the plane”.
At the launch, he said, “we never really knew loyalty very well… having said that, we have 13 million [...]
Writing about failures taught him, “be a person of character, not a personality”
My first question to Vincent Ng, the co-author of “Why You Should Fail”, was, of course, “have you failed?” To which his eyes lit up with glee and he said, “Yes.”
“I’ve been doing entrepreneur things since I was 16,” he said proudly. “I sold candy to my schoolmates. The money [...]
From Scottish herring to unicorn: 12 lessons from Gareth Williams’ Skyscanner journey
Gareth Williams and his two co-founders, Barry Smith and Bonamy Grimes, built the first prototype for Skyscanner in 2001/2002 in the docks area of Edinburgh and launched it in 2003. That means almost a 15-year journey before it was acquired by Ctrip for US$1.7 billion last November, proving there’ [...]
Okerstrom steps into Khosrowshahi’s “big” shoes in transition likened to water flowing down snow-packed mountain
In a transition described by chairman Barry Diller “as natural as water flowing down a snow-packed mountain”, Mark Okerstrom, executive vice president of operations and chief financial officer, has been made the new CEO of Expedia.
Okerstrom, who has worked at outgoing CEO Dara Khosrowshahi� [...]
Skyscanner’s Gareth Williams on how its bet on Asia led to its big win, being a CEO and the future of apps
The first thing Gareth Williams, CEO & co-founder of Skyscanner, says to me with a grin when I caught up with him yesterday evening was, “I deny all rumours that I was offered the Uber job.”
Wishing Dara Khosrowshahi well (the Expedia Inc CEO has indicated he will accept the job as Uber C [...]
Hatched in Antarctica, now a reality in Malaysia, BorderPass aims to cut immigration queues
It’s been a long journey but BorderPass, the brainchild of Faisal Ariff, aimed at easing immigration at airports with the use of technology has passed the final acceptance test with the Malaysian Immigration Department and on September 1, the first auto-gate will commence operations. Here’s the [...]
The day when Hurricane Dara lashed travel – imagine what he could do with Uber and Asia
Just as Hurricane Harvey was battering Texas and severe tropical storm Pahkar was lashing Hong Kong over the weekend, another kind of storm was being unleashed in the tech and travel industry– the news that Expedia Inc CEO Dara Khosrowshahi had been picked as the candidate to head Uber.
As soci [...]
